books on processor architecture basics and theory

[Scott_Arm]

Hi,
I'm interested in learning about micro-processor architectures. I was wondering if anyone knew some good books on the subject.

I've studied electronics and digital logic and some PLD architecture. One of my profs gave us a bit of a taste of microprocessor architecture. I'm interested in learning about the x86 series and RISC processors and about topics like pipelining etc. A good basic theory book for something with knowledge of digital electronics would be great. I'm also interested in GPUs, but I don't know if there's really any books on the topic.

Thanks

 

[Tahir2]

I dont know of any books but one of the best places on the net for the layman to get started on is Ars Technica. They have a forum there as well. Another place I used to visit often is JC News (forgot the URL).

Good luck..

 

[Killer-Kris]

I dont know of any books but one of the best places on the net for the layman to get started on is Ars Technica. They have a forum there as well. Another place I used to visit often is JC News (forgot the URL).

Good luck..

I too would recommend Ars Technica, but also Aceshardware and Realworldtech

All three of these have some pretty good tech articles, and I know the last two (Aces and Realworld) have people from industry posting on their forums who are usually more than willing to answer questions.

Oh, and by the way I thought JC News had closed down, or actually just the owner stopped updating. Regardless here's the link to the site I think you were meaning JC's PC News though after checking it out it looks like they're not dead after all.

 

[Tahir2]

JC had time off from the site a while back and hasn't been as active since. When he does post it is always something interesting.. thanks for the URL reminder Kris!

 

[Snyder]

IMO good reading provide the two classics from Henessy/Patterson:
Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach
Computer Organization and Design

 

[Killer-Kris]

JC had time off from the site a while back and hasn't been as active since. When he does post it is always something interesting.. thanks for the URL reminder Kris!

My pleasure.

Scott, I've noticed that alot of those sights link to each other, so it might be worth while for you to click through some of the thinks and see if they give you some helpful info. For example most of the realworldtech articles actually have links to whitepapers from IBM, Sun, and many others that might be of some use once you get past the basics.

 

[gundam675]

there are plenty of great books on this topic out there. i have quite a few but are outdated. they date back to pentium 2 architecutres, but are good starting points. start at your local library or university. if u are an engineering student, i am positive your engineering library will have a plethora of textbooks.

for instance this is a great book

The Advanced Intel Microprocessors

by Barry B. Brey.

i read this a couple of times back when i was into designing circuits and interfacing with the old pentiums. of course i forgot most of it know since i am a molecular bio student. but i know it was good stuff..

p.s. look for the lastest edition, im sure the newer versions have real up to date info..

good luck !

oh btw, these books explain microprocessors with the use of assembly language as well. if you dont know asm i suggested u learn it quick !

here i found it for u on amazon, this is the most recent one.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t..._1_1/102-0146469-1678508?v=glance&s=books

enjoy !

 

[udd]

Fpga implementation of a barrel processor

Hi,
Can anyone provide me architecture of barrel processor please....

 

[flynn]

I would study some classic RISC architecture rather than x86. The design is way cleaner and less complex, at least it was for a while. MIPS, PowerPC or SPARC are good examples of this. Of course once you introduce things like OOOE and cache coherency in SMP it's not so simple anymore. sparc.org has plenty of useful documentation.

On modern Intel and AMD CPUs assembly language (machine code really) is what you feed the CPUs, but it's not what the CPUs run. All modern x86 CPUs translate that into RISC-like microops, so it depends on how deep you want to go, as there's a lot of stuff going on under the hood with shadow registers and whatnot.

A good book on operating system design will give you plenty of insight on how CPUs work. Both Intel and AMD provide that documentation: AMD docs